Our Inspire and Create (IC) event is a school-wide activity that promotes creative problem solving and collaboration – it is also a time to have some fun! Occurring once a month, students from K-9 gather in division groups (K-3; 4-6; 7-9) or mixed grade (K-9) groups and are given a challenge.

At New Horizons School, each student is assigned to be a member one of our four houses: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. During the IC activity, students work together in their house group.

Typically, the event begins with a short divergent thinking activity in which students generate as many ideas as possible in a predetermined time. For instance, students may be asked to identify as many uses as they can for a pencil.

After the brain warm-up activity, student groups are given a problem to solve. In the example video below, students were divided into division groups. (Prior to the event, students spent several weeks gathering paper tubes.) Their challenge was was to design and create a series of paper tube tunnels that were taped to a wall and through which a marble had to travel and end up in a plastic cup.

The different age groups had varying levels of design criteria which needed to be met.